The economic crises will lead to the fact that the Ukraine will stop production and the country will join the Russian Federation. This broadcast channel "Ukraine" said the representative of the party "Fair Russia" Alexi Mitrofanov. "The economic crises arranges everything in its place. 16 billion for Ukraine is very little.

[EagleEye Note: The IMF floated 16 billion to the nation to help with economic issues]

Russia will increase gas prices, Ukraine’s industry will not be because the metals will not be able to survive with such a high price for gas." he says.

…"There is no other way. America will not feed you"…

…The major problem remains the gas bill of Kiev…

…Note that at the end of last week, the president of Russia Dmitry Medvedev called on the head of the OAO Gazprom Alexi Miller to recover from the Ukraine the gas bill, by force if necessary…

Interesting story indeed. I want to note that this story is dated today, 24 November 2008 at 15:09 Russia time.

EuroPac continues to be my guiding economic light in all of this, as they continually hit the mark with assessment on just what is going on in the world.

P.S. I believe that socialism is inherently evil. It is the oppression of the masses and slavery to Government… which is nothing more than a few people at the top acting tyrannically. Some people believe it’s lies of “economic freedom”… because they are deceived. It’s “economic slavery”. Some are just foolish enough to believe they will become the masters in a government slave system which enslaves all the people. I really have not studied Russia at all to know if it became more democratic and less communist. If it is truly more democratic, democracy is inherently “just” in that it is the will of the people. The system itself is not evil – though the people may have evil ideologies. Socialism, however, is to me inherently evil because it enslaves a free people and robs from them their freedom of will and right to have a governmetn of the people, by the people, and for the people providing liberty.

I’m not really sure where Russia is “at” in the scheme of still being a truly “evil empire”. You’re educating me a bit. 🙂 That’s why blogs are good. 🙂

I would say the decision is in the eye of the beholder. In the case of South Ossetia, I would imagine a large part of the folk would welcome returning to Russia, as a large majority of people there are Russian, have Russian passports, etc.; regardless of the fact that international arbitration set the borders otherwise.

Georgia may have reacted strongly to the reports from that region, but along the same lines I do not think that Russia had any more right to roll over the borders of their country. I view it more of a civil matter between states within Georgia.

As for the Ukraine, this is obvious strong-arming. The current Russian president sat on the board of the monopoly natural gas company that feeds gas into the Ukraine. Shutting off the gas, collecting the bill ‘by force’ is what it is- a brutal way to force a free nation to its knees in order to ‘recreate’ the USSR.

Putin and his congress have now taken steps to amend the Russian constitution to give the president a six-year term. In doing so, he is no longer bound by the term limits of the former constitution and it is reported that he will return to the presidency for another 12 years.

Sounds kind of fishy to me no matter how it is sliced. As to the morality of this, one need only look back to the 40’s-80’s. The difference now is that Russia has economic power in the form of petrol, while we are weak from over-indulgence. We cannot bring them to their knees like we did before.

In the 80’s we rode the wave of military might to the point that Russia bankrupt itself in an effort to keep up. Today, I see the positions as reversed.

To put it bluntly, it is evil in the case of the Ukraine. Putin absolutely wants to reunite the former Soviet Empire. As to South Ossetia, I will grant leeway in that they have people there that they are responsible for (but I also think they are suing it as a political lever to the fullest extent).

Hope that muddied my opinion.

Oh.. and I sent you an email to your profile email. You should check it occasionally.